A wow weekend evening

Hey folks,

As promised earlier, here’s the post on last Sunday’s meetup.

The original plan was to meetup with Srinath (mainly to catch up with him) but also to cheer up the dude. He’s slogging his ass off at work and we (me and Vinay) couldn’t just leave him at that.

So, Yours Skeptically, just thought he’d plan a surprise party on the beach with a lot of common people and cheer up Srinath in a big way. But, as randomness would have it, Yours Skeptically, screwed up in his own unique way! Also, people like Teal, LVS and a few others opted out at the last minute, due to who-knows-what reasons!

So, the plan came down to me and Vinay meeting Srinath on the beach. Vinay suggested that the local Twitter user group was meeting nearby to celebrate Benedict’s and Nadhiya’s birthdays. Being the shy type, I initially hesitated. But, Vinay ‘compelled’, ‘persistently insisted’ and ‘literally dragged’ me there. Srinath had no issues with coming there, from the beginning.

Again, being the busy dude, Srinath said he would ‘confirm’ the plan by 4 PM. He promptly did so. Yours Skeptically was sleeping when he sent the confirmation SMS. So, had to get up, grab some grub and rush to the ’spot’!

I reached the Spencer’s Daily outlet in Besant Nagar and found Srinath waiting there for me promptly. We walked to the beach talking usual crap

It was nice talking to the fellow in person after a loooooooong time. We caught up on some old times. A few leg pullings et al.

Being the busier dude, Vinay turned up at 6 30 for a meeting scheduled at 5 30 PM. Payan periya aal aaittaan. Navin Iyer ku laam website design pannaraan! paah!

Srinath posing perfectly. Me looking at the scenery. Trick photography!

Then, we had a photo-shoot on the beach. Vinay is still uploading his pics from that session, one pic for every 3-4 days! Sustainable content delivery paradigm aamaa. Mokkai naai!

As we were pulling each others’ legs, Saranyan called up and asked where we were. I had informed him that I’ll be in his area in the evening and invited him sincerely for the Chennai Tweetup. To my luck, he agreed.

Srinath and I walked towards the Murugan Idli Shop on Bessie Beach Road, to meet Saranyan and go down to the Tweetup. Vinay, meanwhile, sped past us on his bike (scootie pep plus pink colour)!

He stopped by for Srinath to hitch a ride upto Mast Kalandhar, where the meetup was taking place. Meanwhile, me and Saranyan were talking about all kinds of stuff ranging from the French Revolution to Robin Williams’ stand-up comedy!

The generous dude, Vinay, dropped Srinath off at Mast Kalandhar and came back to pick up me and Saranyan. And, Saranyan, being the oh-so-accomodative guy, opted to walk. We had to use a few choicest swear words to ‘persuade’ him into getting onto the bike. So, three people on a bike driven by someone like Vinay. Need I say more?!

We landed at Mast Kalandhar about a minute later. Srinath was there with the camera and we took ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ style pics on Vinay’s bike!

Vinay and Saranyan posing perfectly. Me staring at scenery(?!)

Prakash stepped out of the restaurant and greeted us. Nice dude, I must say. Very gentle mannered. Works for Symantec, btw. So, now you know whom to kick if your Norton Antivirus doesn’t work well!

We then walked into the restaurant and spotted 2 tables worth of people (~ 10-12), all pepped up to smash the cake on Benedict’s and Nadhiya’s face! We then introduced ourselves to Aravind Kumar, Raja (I knew him already), Shiv Ranjan, Ratz, Magesh, Benedict and the rest of the gang.

Then, orey the cake cuttings, cake hittings, cake eatings only!

Srinath had to leave early and Vinay went to drop him. Meanwhile, me, Saranyan, Raja and Magesh mixed up our orders and ended up drinking each others’ drinks!

Saranyan and I were waiting for Raja to be done with his drink. Once he was done, we bye’d the gang and left the place. Stomach was making strange sounds. Then, I realised the drink I had was an apetizer! WTF mode.

Came down and spotted Vinay waiting for me and Saranyan across the road. Rushed, got onto his bike and went to AAB for a more economical, more filling dinner. Had a lot of ROTFL moments there, expecially at the billing counter and then while eating.

Once we were done eating, I had to leave with Vinay. We bye’d Saranyan and sped away towards the ‘heart of the city’!

Vinay then took an amazingly complicated route and dropped me in T Nagar. I got hold of a Share Auto from there. Sandhya kept me occupied on the phone during the lonesome Share Auto ride. Pretty surprising to find a Share Auto go empty for a long time around 9 PM in the night on a Sunday THIS close to Diwali. Folks at home were wow. Why? Because I had returned home much earlier than what I had informed prior to leaving. Maybe I should give them more of those wow moments!

Rest later.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. A totally amazing time we had that day, as may be evident from the tone of the post above.

Festivity and Technology

Hey folks,

I have always been an ardent supporter of technology and an advocate of its inherent positives. But, today, I am going over to the other side to talk about how technology has mechanised the traditions of Indian festivity to a sizeable extent.

I woke up today morning to find my GMail Inbox overflowing with Diwali ‘wishes’ emails. Some of them were personalised and had content known only to myself and the sender. But, by and large, most of them had a generic ‘wish’ and were most probably sent out as a broadcast.

I sat down to think how things used to be (just about) 7-8 years ago! Sending emails was only a means to reach out to expats where the cost of an ISD call was unreasonably high. That is an understandably reasonable use of technology.

Also, speaking ideologically (like Srinath), a wish is a genuine transfer of goodwill from the heart that is converted to a verbal or textual form in order to be able to be communicated across. However, I can still wish Srinath wins in life all the time, without letting him know. Both of us still know that we would support each other irrespective of our own states of existence or any other tangible aspect of life. We have never wished each other for anything in the last 4-5 years. This goes for Arun, LVS, Pavithra, Ash, (the other) Srinath et all too! Sowmiya is a little particular about wishes, though. I still don’t wish her. But again, we know we’re there for each other irrespective of the presence or absence of any tangible aspect of life!

Today, I had to import all my business contacts and send them ‘Diwali greetings’. I did it. For reasons best left untold here.

But ever since I hit that ‘Send’ button, I kinda felt a bit uncomfortable about the lack of personalization and unconditional genuineness in such a wish.

So, here’s the official line. I have now taken a resolution to send out personalised emails to the folks (whose names are) mentioned above and to a select few (who’ve made a difference to my life) other than them.

Why email? Why not a phone call? You may ask. I chose to use the same ‘cold’ and ‘impersonal’ medium to create goodwill in a way that’s similar to a good old phone call. Just to prove one point I’ve always advocated, ‘Technology is only a medium, a tool. How it is used could drastically change the way you or me or the World function(s)’.

What better a way to announce this than a good old blog post?!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. Please gimme some time, guys! Writing personalized emails back-to-back isn’t an easy task!

Man and Emotions

Hey folks,

It’s been quite a long time since I posted on this blog. Not that I’ve been busy, just didn’t have the inclination to sit down and post. A lot of draft posts lined up but nothing completed. To those of you looking for a cheerful light-hearted post, don’t bother reading further. This isn’t it. On the other hand, if you’d care to know what’s been going on in my life in the last 3 weeks, please read further.

The last 3 months in life have been totally amazing. Not only on the work front but also w.r.t personal life. People who’re close to me would know that I’m a born Leo. Arun would vouch for how short-tempered I used to be whilst in college. Probably, Sathya might vouch for it too.

The day myself and Srinath started Sit, to discuss our personal value and belief systems on a quasi-public platform, we (knowingly or unknowingly) ushered into our lives a movement towards increased tolerance and openness. To many, this might sound like a statement worth ridicule. But to the few who have known either (or both) of us well pre and post Sit, the difference would be quite visible.

To this day, there are people in my circle who laud this openness and there are people who criticise it to the core. The truth is that neither of them is wrong. I chose to go ahead with the openness because somewhere inside me, it felt good to continually keep changing for the better. Irrespective of who or what brought about the change.

About three months ago, I told Srinath I would make the first ever attempt in life to remain a lot more patient. To tolerate a lot more destructive and constructive criticism. To remain calm and react to them with a balanced state of mind. A lot of people were responsible for this little attempt. Namely, Dr Annamalai from Gandhi Study Centre, Milind Jadhav, Srinath himself and finally, my greatest inspiration in life, M K Gandhi.

Randomness has been my best friend and worst enemy, both at the same time. It waited for 22 long years to let the above mentioned piece of wisdom dawn upon me. But, fortunately, it gave me enough chances to test my patience and my conviction towards the word I gave to Srinath.

As my Facebook and Twitter trail would indicate, work-life has had a lot of positive progress. So much so, that a few people who had written me off have bothered to contact me and let me know I’m doing a good job. Nice. But there have also been some really pressurising times when I used to work hours together for no apparent progress to take place.

Those pressurising times made my process of transition towards a calm, balanced self a bit more elusive. Every human being has an emotional high point and every human being makes mistakes. But, fortunately or unfortunately, they had to take place at the same time in my life. This led to a lot of unnecessary complications and a lot of emotional pressure.

I have always kinda had a fear of offending people. As a result, (in recent times) an apology from my side would never be a moment too late, if the mistake is/was on my part. Sometimes, the apologies would get a little too much. People are different. So, there is also a chance that someone would get offended by an excessive apology!

It is a little sad that I’ve been completely ignorant of that fact in life till now! A little incident involving such a person created quite a bit of emotional pressure over 3 weeks of time. Srinath, Teal, Pavithra, Arun and LVS would remember this incident. They usually know everything there is to anything in my life. I didn’t bother telling Vinay, Vinay and SrinathC for (their respective obvious) reasons best left untold here. At best, they would’ve noticed that I wasn’t normal.

I have to kneel down and acknowledge the support that all of them provided to me during this rough patch in life. But for them, I would’ve lost my cool completely, long ago. A special thanks to Saranyan for telling me a few subtle points about my own personality. Some things I had failed to notice even after some introspection.

It was VERY difficult, trust me. But, I’ve kinda made it through the rough patch with as much patience and balance I could muster on my mind. Naturally, due to work life and its pressures, I would’ve had emotional high points and would’ve lost my cool. I felt like a naxal who wanted to return to society and lead a normal life. Society would never accept him initially. But, over a period of time, even Society would change seeing the conviction of the guy towards leading a normal life and towards patiently awaiting forgiving. Though these emotional high points led to a lot of complications, all it took was one single long conversation to set things straight.

The first time I waited patiently for a person in life, it has turned out to be a nice outcome. The first time I tried to consciously maintain the balance of tolerance and self-respect-breach. The first time I stepped forward to admit all my mistakes upfront. The first time I continued to show respect for someone who was totally pissed off with me and kinda ignoring me. This moment in time, as I’m typing this post, I feel a sense of victory I have never ever felt before in life.

Not even when I’ve done my best feats and not even when I’ve won prizes. This seems beyond all that. The sense that I have won trying to do something I never believed I could do, only 3 months ago. It is truly an amazing experience.

Time might fly and people might come and go in my life. This incident will stay as the one that lead my transformation towards greater tolerance, greater patience and a stable balance of emotions.

I just felt like putting this up as a regular blog post. No specific reasons. More of gut feeling.

Will post in the coming weeks about a lot of positive and VERY happy things.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. I have tried my best to put down the outline of incidents. The granular details need not be dealt with here. There is an alternate space for that.

Charlie Hitler

Hey folks,

I have been impressed a lot by Hitler’s assertiveness that I used to read pages and pages of stuff about him. I have a high-res rare young-age photo of him on my desktop itself. A friend of mine (who is usually well informed) came over to my place for taking some ‘.rpm’  files from me. He was naturally drawn to look at the pic and the following convo took place.

Him: Dei.. that guy was history’s greatest comedian!

Me: Well.. he was one of history’s best leaders too!

Him: I’ve seen many of his movies and I think he is still very hilarious.

Me: ?!

Him: That guy had the nerve to mock some of the greatest military leaders of his time!

Me: ?! ?!….. dude… whom do you think he is?

Him: I know he is Charlie Chaplin dude! Don’t you dare think I’m dumb!

Me: I don’t need to think if you’re dumb da! You just made the answer quite obvious!

Him: Yeah! I’m sure you’re wondering if I’d be your quiz partner from now on!

Me: EKSI?! ?!

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. I don’t believe in re-birth as such. But, incidents like these make me wonder if I was Heinrich Himmler in my previous birth.

Personal Branding

Hey folks,

It’s been a really long time since I wrote on this space. A lot of things have happened in life since the last time I wrote and it wouldn’t be possible to write about all of them together in a single post. I prefer to split them into various posts, each one focussing on a particular event/incident/learning/person.

This post is about an awesome person whom I came to know recently, Milind Jadhav. Randomness has led me to meet some of my closest friends in life. People like Pavithra, Raja M, Kunal Shah are some examples where both of us have no idea how we first met! That has been the case here too.

Milind is one of those typical branding gurus that you read about in the business newspapers. An IIM Bangalore graduate with a strong passion towards advertising, Milind has about 15+ years of advertising/branding experience behind his name! We both share that little passion.

But, what inspired me was not that. Milind has now almost given up advertising to take up his role as a ‘ Personal Branding Trainer and Life Skills Coach’. That’s what impressed me. I don’t see many people do that in life, especially at that age and with that kind of a background.

Milind has a strong passion towards helping people live their lives in better ways, as well. He writes on Daily Life Lessons about various things that provoke thought about how and why we are the way we are. I see that blog going places in the near future!

Milind is a lot into personal branding and has even developed his own version of a personal branding workshop, The Brand YOU Workshop, from scratch. I had the privilege of attending the inaugural edition of that workshop and I must say it is an amazing piece of work. It gives you a good framework to start off on your approach towards creating a brand around yourself.

Though the process is based mainly on good-old self-introspection, Milind has tried to put in a lot of examples, interesting exercises and other such things and has made the workshop very interesting. Let me warn you that the workshop exercises are heavy on the mind as such but the way Milind takes you through them is probably the best way to do it.

More information about the workshop can be found here. Let me also tell you that there is no popular time-tested kind of a trainer for personal branding in India, as of now. So, it’s pretty fortunate that Milind stays in Chennai and operates out of Chennai primarily!

He’s got a very infectious smile and a good sense of humour, in case you’re wondering if he’s this big corporate grouch!

Chennai's own Personal Branding Trainer!

I guess that’s it for now. Will post on Sit’s first unconference shortly.

Yours Skeptically,

P.S. I have made several minute changes to this blog. The most obvious would be the title of the blog and this signature. I have also enabled comment moderation because this blog is being followed by a lot of respectable people now.